Baker and Banker Review in SF Chron
- Thread starter Joe Dressner
- Start date
scottreiner
scott reiner
$44 or $45 in nyc...
Levi Dalton
Levi Dalton
Collin,
Your list is very well priced at the high end and you offer a very wide selection of by the glass pours on which there is more waste. You don't have anything to apologize for in terms of pricing. Those who would begrudge you a few dollars on the Pinon might just as easily praise you for a very low Selosse price.
I myself struggle every day with bridging the distance between guest comfort level and the bottles I think pair well with the food. Mostly I think that as Paul G. of Hearth fame said, the problem with most wine lists is that they are lists. I would encourage you to think outside the AOC on a page way of conveying your offerings. I went ahead and listed the pours in order of weight, with a corresponding color code next to each option. The deeper the yellow or red, the bigger and denser the wine. I also provide brief descriptons for pours. And I ditched straight ahead geographic or by price listings and grouped up items on the list by style (Elegant and Aromatic, Big and Full Flavored, Layered and Complex, Mature and Developed). This, in addition to a lot of staff training, and a willingness to pour small sample tastes of by the glass options, has really helped.
Guests want to come in and feel comfortable. If you were to change the layout of your list so that people looking at it feel smarter and empowered rather than befuddled and adrift, I think everyone involved would be happier for it.
I also think you break with your own theme and offer the Burgundy and Bordeaux straight laces at the end and thus the way you have it you set up this Kid's Stuff vs. The Grown Up's Table false dichotomy that only encourages people to look at the previous wines as second best. Don't break with your own theme.
Because the list you are offering is actually quite friendly in terms of pricing and pour options. If you were to look at innovative ways of couching that list in a more accessible format, you might meet with more frequent praise. I think that you are not well served by grouping items by variety/appellation because in general you don't have more than 5 options for a given variety. That just highlights your list in the wrong way. The format makes the options seem more constricted than they are.
Like I can tell you that your listing format is not complimentary to the content, or I can tell you that your list has all these beautiful, bangin' curves, but is tucked into too tight skinny jeans that don't flatter the ass.
People are going to remember and appreciate the more accessible phrasing.
Just a friendly suggestion.
Your list is very well priced at the high end and you offer a very wide selection of by the glass pours on which there is more waste. You don't have anything to apologize for in terms of pricing. Those who would begrudge you a few dollars on the Pinon might just as easily praise you for a very low Selosse price.
I myself struggle every day with bridging the distance between guest comfort level and the bottles I think pair well with the food. Mostly I think that as Paul G. of Hearth fame said, the problem with most wine lists is that they are lists. I would encourage you to think outside the AOC on a page way of conveying your offerings. I went ahead and listed the pours in order of weight, with a corresponding color code next to each option. The deeper the yellow or red, the bigger and denser the wine. I also provide brief descriptons for pours. And I ditched straight ahead geographic or by price listings and grouped up items on the list by style (Elegant and Aromatic, Big and Full Flavored, Layered and Complex, Mature and Developed). This, in addition to a lot of staff training, and a willingness to pour small sample tastes of by the glass options, has really helped.
Guests want to come in and feel comfortable. If you were to change the layout of your list so that people looking at it feel smarter and empowered rather than befuddled and adrift, I think everyone involved would be happier for it.
I also think you break with your own theme and offer the Burgundy and Bordeaux straight laces at the end and thus the way you have it you set up this Kid's Stuff vs. The Grown Up's Table false dichotomy that only encourages people to look at the previous wines as second best. Don't break with your own theme.
Because the list you are offering is actually quite friendly in terms of pricing and pour options. If you were to look at innovative ways of couching that list in a more accessible format, you might meet with more frequent praise. I think that you are not well served by grouping items by variety/appellation because in general you don't have more than 5 options for a given variety. That just highlights your list in the wrong way. The format makes the options seem more constricted than they are.
Like I can tell you that your listing format is not complimentary to the content, or I can tell you that your list has all these beautiful, bangin' curves, but is tucked into too tight skinny jeans that don't flatter the ass.
People are going to remember and appreciate the more accessible phrasing.
Just a friendly suggestion.
But what does that guy who just posted know about wine lists?
I agree with what Levi said, actually. Especially re: the separation of the Burgundy/Bordeaux list, to which certain eyes are going to be immediately drawn, thus rendering all the work on the rest of the list irrelevant. I'm also a long-time devote of grouping by style rather than appellation unless you have a focused regional list, which you do not.
Visually, I don't understand the italicization. It doesn't follow a form...it's not regularly the appellation, or the grape, or a trade name, or a vineyard...it's just this random font change in the middle of each entry. I'd ditch it. Or at least I'd standardize it. If you're going to list the varieties with each entry, maybe only italicize those that aren't the name of the wine, e.g.:
Bumblebee Incontinence 2004 Chardonnay, Sonoma County
Drouhin 2002 St-Veran, Burgundy, Chardonnay
But I'd still ditch it. I don't mind listing the varieties, but a lot of lists solve the clutter issue by removing them to a different column or line, and you might consider that. Wine names already have more than enough words; no need to make it even harder on the eye.
Also, in an effort to reduce the clutter, I'd like to see a little more visual space. The eye glazes in the midst of the white and red sections, and this makes it even harder for a diner who's already bewildered at the unfamiliar names, because now both their brain and their eyes are tuning out. Levi's list is visually quite compelling, and clear, and easy to read in discrete chunks despite being very long. Here's another list I'm sure you know well, and again italicization and visual cues (even though the web makes it harder to read than the print list) are used to clarify what would otherwise be difficult and confusing information for the non-wine geek. Here's something more like Levi's describing...moving some of the explanatory work to the list itself, rather than the servers (though there's no substitute for that either, and kudos for making the effort).
Finally, you might want to go through the list with a very fine-toothed editor's comb and hunt for typos, unless they're just on the web version and don't exist on the list.
All that said, it's a very good list and I'm eager to come visit the next time I'm in SF. The prices seem fine to me, especially compared to where I live, and the options are exciting. Nicely done.
I agree with what Levi said, actually. Especially re: the separation of the Burgundy/Bordeaux list, to which certain eyes are going to be immediately drawn, thus rendering all the work on the rest of the list irrelevant. I'm also a long-time devote of grouping by style rather than appellation unless you have a focused regional list, which you do not.
Visually, I don't understand the italicization. It doesn't follow a form...it's not regularly the appellation, or the grape, or a trade name, or a vineyard...it's just this random font change in the middle of each entry. I'd ditch it. Or at least I'd standardize it. If you're going to list the varieties with each entry, maybe only italicize those that aren't the name of the wine, e.g.:
Bumblebee Incontinence 2004 Chardonnay, Sonoma County
Drouhin 2002 St-Veran, Burgundy, Chardonnay
But I'd still ditch it. I don't mind listing the varieties, but a lot of lists solve the clutter issue by removing them to a different column or line, and you might consider that. Wine names already have more than enough words; no need to make it even harder on the eye.
Also, in an effort to reduce the clutter, I'd like to see a little more visual space. The eye glazes in the midst of the white and red sections, and this makes it even harder for a diner who's already bewildered at the unfamiliar names, because now both their brain and their eyes are tuning out. Levi's list is visually quite compelling, and clear, and easy to read in discrete chunks despite being very long. Here's another list I'm sure you know well, and again italicization and visual cues (even though the web makes it harder to read than the print list) are used to clarify what would otherwise be difficult and confusing information for the non-wine geek. Here's something more like Levi's describing...moving some of the explanatory work to the list itself, rather than the servers (though there's no substitute for that either, and kudos for making the effort).
Finally, you might want to go through the list with a very fine-toothed editor's comb and hunt for typos, unless they're just on the web version and don't exist on the list.
All that said, it's a very good list and I'm eager to come visit the next time I'm in SF. The prices seem fine to me, especially compared to where I live, and the options are exciting. Nicely done.
But you could do that at Convivio because the list is so focused on Italian wines.
For broader international lists I find these categories too confusing. And often subjective.
But maybe the general public feels differently.
And maybe that's because I already know what I want and like to be able to quickly scan for my favorite regions.
That's really the point of Levi's suggestion, Rahsaan. For you, a knowledgeable wine dork, it doesn't really matter what form the list takes, because you know many of the unfamiliar wines and you're fairly likely to take a risk if you don't. (Well, maybe not you...) For the vast majority of the rest of the possible diners at that restaurant, what gives them pause at seeing zweigelt or romorantin isn't that they don't know the producer, it's that they don't know what the wine is. Meaning: what it tastes like, and whether or not it goes with what they're eating.
Yes, there are people who need Cougar Juice at every single dinner. But they're only going to dine at B&B once, after which they'll be irritated by the list (and probably the food), so we can dismiss them. If we slipped some off-dry Georgian saperavi onto that list, and you ordered one and had a bad experience, the problem wasn't that you were unfamiliar with a specific producer of saperavi, the problem was that you weren't given enough information about the wine to make a choice based on your preferences. "Hey, this is sweet!" Well, yeah. And if you didn't know that, the broadest possible Georgian section on the wine list wouldn't help you a bit. "Red and sweet" would.
I don't understand what international vs. Italian has to do with it. Obviously, any assessment is subjective, but how does putting an Alto Adige Sylvaner against a Napa chardonnay mean that you can't say one's heavier, bigger, and fruitier than the other?
Let's say you "know" you like riesling because you've had a lot of CSM "Eroica" -- will that knowledge help when faced with a bunch of BAs masquerading as auslesen? Or worse, Trimbach CFE? Not if you don't know the styles of those wines. You're much more likely to have a bad food/wine or just wine experience not because you didn't know who Trimbach was, but because you didn't have stylistic information about the wine you just ordered, thinking you knew and liked riesling.
Someone writing a list that's going to require customer education has three choices. First, they can train the hell out of their staff, which would seem to be going on here. Second, they can try to teach traditional wine knowledge -- "Alsace's rieslings are dry," "except when they're not, which is more likely of late," "but Trimbach is dry" and so forth -- but that's a big ask for someone who just wants to have a nice meal and a wine that goes with it. Anyway, the third choice is that they can stop trying to qualify their customers for the WSET examination and instead give them information they can use. I think that's better, as a rule, here in the States. There are exceptions -- obviously, Veritas can't and shouldn't make this choice, nor should the Hitching Post -- and I wouldn't apply this rule to a restaurant in Lucca or Haro, but why not make it as easy as possible for the diners?
Yes, there are people who need Cougar Juice at every single dinner. But they're only going to dine at B&B once, after which they'll be irritated by the list (and probably the food), so we can dismiss them. If we slipped some off-dry Georgian saperavi onto that list, and you ordered one and had a bad experience, the problem wasn't that you were unfamiliar with a specific producer of saperavi, the problem was that you weren't given enough information about the wine to make a choice based on your preferences. "Hey, this is sweet!" Well, yeah. And if you didn't know that, the broadest possible Georgian section on the wine list wouldn't help you a bit. "Red and sweet" would.
I don't understand what international vs. Italian has to do with it. Obviously, any assessment is subjective, but how does putting an Alto Adige Sylvaner against a Napa chardonnay mean that you can't say one's heavier, bigger, and fruitier than the other?
Let's say you "know" you like riesling because you've had a lot of CSM "Eroica" -- will that knowledge help when faced with a bunch of BAs masquerading as auslesen? Or worse, Trimbach CFE? Not if you don't know the styles of those wines. You're much more likely to have a bad food/wine or just wine experience not because you didn't know who Trimbach was, but because you didn't have stylistic information about the wine you just ordered, thinking you knew and liked riesling.
Someone writing a list that's going to require customer education has three choices. First, they can train the hell out of their staff, which would seem to be going on here. Second, they can try to teach traditional wine knowledge -- "Alsace's rieslings are dry," "except when they're not, which is more likely of late," "but Trimbach is dry" and so forth -- but that's a big ask for someone who just wants to have a nice meal and a wine that goes with it. Anyway, the third choice is that they can stop trying to qualify their customers for the WSET examination and instead give them information they can use. I think that's better, as a rule, here in the States. There are exceptions -- obviously, Veritas can't and shouldn't make this choice, nor should the Hitching Post -- and I wouldn't apply this rule to a restaurant in Lucca or Haro, but why not make it as easy as possible for the diners?
Yes, but then that chops up the wine list in weird ways. Or maybe just for me.
Perhaps that is mainly because I think of wine in terms of regions and grapes. So I want to be able to see all my choices from the Loire/Burgundy/Beaujolais whatever and then decide what I want to drink for that meal. Without having to rifle through different sections because one vintage and one bottling is slightly heavier and fruitier than another.
But I realize that people like me are not the concern here anyway. Because we're empowered enough to open our mouths and ask questions if we have them. And the pain of my rifling is probably less than the pain of someone who doesn't know much about wine and might get turned off otherwise.
I'll give you that.
Nonetheless, sometimes these 'thematic' categories come off as so cutsey. Doesn't that bother anyone!
I think things should have an organizing principle as a general rule. While I hate Levi's suggestion of descriptive categories (I have a visceral reaction to those lists) that is at least an organizing principle that might help people navigate.
If it were me, I'd do it by grower and have a narrower list. There is a restaurant in the 11th in Paris that did it this way. They had wines listed by grower and then had a general list of whites and reds after that. Still my favorite. It was a Burgundy centric list though, so amenable to that.
Bill Lundstrom
Bill Lundstrom
I agree with you. i find lists grouped by style instead of region very clunky to get through.
Tom Glasgow
Thomas W Glasgow
Just come up with multiple lists, that way people can get really confused.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
I prefer a list ordered by longitude and latitude. That way, I can scan it into my GPS and let it choose.
I admit I find it amusing to see all us wine geeks saying that we find lists not written under the assumption of expert-level knowledge clunky, viscerally bothersome, and so forth. But I think that were we not experts on a different subject, we'd be confused by lists in those realms that organized themselves the way we want wine lists to be organized.
Let's say you don't know anything, or much of anything, about music. You walk into a store (let's assume for the sake of argument that there are still physical stores) and there's all the music, alphabetized by artist. All of it. Coltrane, Coldplay, Copland, Court Yard Hounds, one right after the other. Hope your tastes in music are catholic, because that's four completely different genres right there. Or maybe the store is helpful and organizes their music by country of origin. Or by price. Or by record label. Very helpful, right? Maybe iTunes should just offer a big list of songs, grouped by year, or artist, or country, but not sorted by genre.
If not music, then peppercorns. Stereo equipment. GPS units. Cheese. Cars. Let's see a list of all the cars Nissan makes and try to buy one. Is it a sports car, an SUV? Seats two, seats kids? No, you're not allowed that information, just the producer and the model number. Choose wisely.
I understand wanting expert-targeted lists if you're already an expert. I find them much easier myself. But I'm not a normal customer, and the restaurant isn't going to prosper if its counting on Disorderlies to fill its seats.
What we really need are metatagged, customizable digital lists. So when you sit down, you're handed a tablet organized the way Levi suggests, but if you're the Monkey you can switch to a producer-centric view, and if you're Rahsaan you can switch to an appellation-centric view, and if you're Plotnicki you can switch to a price-centric view (highest first).
Let's say you don't know anything, or much of anything, about music. You walk into a store (let's assume for the sake of argument that there are still physical stores) and there's all the music, alphabetized by artist. All of it. Coltrane, Coldplay, Copland, Court Yard Hounds, one right after the other. Hope your tastes in music are catholic, because that's four completely different genres right there. Or maybe the store is helpful and organizes their music by country of origin. Or by price. Or by record label. Very helpful, right? Maybe iTunes should just offer a big list of songs, grouped by year, or artist, or country, but not sorted by genre.
If not music, then peppercorns. Stereo equipment. GPS units. Cheese. Cars. Let's see a list of all the cars Nissan makes and try to buy one. Is it a sports car, an SUV? Seats two, seats kids? No, you're not allowed that information, just the producer and the model number. Choose wisely.
I understand wanting expert-targeted lists if you're already an expert. I find them much easier myself. But I'm not a normal customer, and the restaurant isn't going to prosper if its counting on Disorderlies to fill its seats.
What we really need are metatagged, customizable digital lists. So when you sit down, you're handed a tablet organized the way Levi suggests, but if you're the Monkey you can switch to a producer-centric view, and if you're Rahsaan you can switch to an appellation-centric view, and if you're Plotnicki you can switch to a price-centric view (highest first).
Bill Lundstrom
Bill Lundstrom
i actually think that is a great idea.
I would imagine we aren't too far away from digital lists. I imagine an ambitious restaurant could set up a webpage that can organize wines by price, producer, or flavor profile with a click of the button and then someone with an iphone or blackberry can look through the list that way.
I would think that a restaurant could set up a wireless network, buy a couple of iTouches or iTablets (or some other similar devices) that connect to their website and diners can access wine lists and menus that way. That way restaurants don't have to reprint menus and wine lists whenever they have changes and diners can search items on those menus and lists more easily.
I would think that a restaurant could set up a wireless network, buy a couple of iTouches or iTablets (or some other similar devices) that connect to their website and diners can access wine lists and menus that way. That way restaurants don't have to reprint menus and wine lists whenever they have changes and diners can search items on those menus and lists more easily.
Tom Glasgow
Thomas W Glasgow
Probably need to wait a few years by then it should be feasible.
Well it can also be confusing to find music when artists overlap the given genres/styles.
But, I don't think listing wine by country and appellation is the same thing as alphabetizing music by artist.
Because even most appellation-centric lists will distinguish sparkling dry(ish) white, dry red, and dessert wines, or something along those lines. Distinctions that are helpful for everyone because they tell you when to drink the wine.
But 'fruity' is a whole different story. Lots of 'fruit' in Kistler Chardonnay, a dry Austrian Smaragd, and a German spatlese, but depending on how you cut the list there may be other overlapping categories and it seems prone to lead to confusion. Especially if you eat in more than one restauarant and want to find that idiosyncratically-listed wine you had in the last one.
Claude Kolm
Claude Kolm
Tom Glasgow
Thomas W Glasgow
I would imagine a lot of stuff walks out of restaurants as it is let alone if you provide Apple devices.